Free Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather by Gao Xingjian Page B

and starts shuffling them again.
    “Tell me a story!” He turns around and the table lampshines on the back of his head, and in the dark, on the bed, he sees her naked body curled up like a fish.
    An empty chair is floating serenely on the water, as ripples of light are reflected on the waves. The sound of the tide can’t be heard; only a long note vibrates in the air, sustained and monotonous.
    A small boy is leaning on a wall, weeping and wailing, but there is no sound. The stone wall is covered with everlasting spring creeper and the sun is shining halfway up the wall.
    On the clipped green lawn an elderly man wearing trousers with suspenders and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar is pulling a length of rope. It is strenuous, but he is relaxed and unhurried.
    He happens to stop in front of a glass advertising display on the street and then becomes absorbed with reading what is inside. The street is fairly deserted and only one or two pedestrians are out.
    She is standing at the end of the street but there is an endless stream of cars. She is too impatient for the red light to change and starts weaving across the road. Another car speeds by and she quickly stops, retreating to the white line in the middle of the road. She looks in the direction of the approaching cars and runs across just after a small sedan has passed. On the footpath she goes up some steps, appears to stop to think for a while, then presses some numbers at the door. There’s a buzz and she opens thedoor and goes inside. Before the door slowly closes, she turns around, but on that overcast day it is even more difficult to see her face clearly.
    There is no chair in the water, only foam. The long-drawn-out sound is intermittent, yet remains suspended in the air, never completely cut off—there is only that bit of sound.
    A fine drizzle is falling on the glass advertising display and he moves aside. The display is full of advertisements for houses on sale with prices attached, some with photographs, most are private residences in the country. Some of the houses are for rent, with ALREADY RENTED written prominently in red on the cheaper ones.
    Another man comes along to pull the rope. He is dressed immaculately, wearing a tie, and he greets the old man wearing trousers with suspenders. Taking the rope and talking and laughing, he steadily sets about this chore. When a heavy thud comes from somewhere not far away, the second man scowls.
    An empty mineral water bottle is floating on the sea, bobbing up and down upon the waves. All this time, the sunlight remains splendid and the sky is so clean, it looks unreal. Maybe because it is too clean, too bright, and too empty, and with the waves sparkling with sunlight, that the empty plastic bottle moving into the distance suddenly turns gray-black and looks like an aquatic bird or some other floating object. At some unknown time the intermittent, long-drawn-out sound has stopped and, like a thread of gossamer blown by the wind, has vanished without trace.
    “A pair of swans came to this seaside, then only one of them was to be seen, the other must have been killed for a trophy. The one left behind flew away soon afterward.” It is a woman’s voice, and clearly for a man to hear. As she speaks, the floating object moving into the distance really looks like an aquatic bird.
    A man wearing glasses comes along to watch the two men pulling the rope. He scrutinizes them with his glasses on, then, taking them off, he wipes them but doesn’t seem to be able to see any more clearly. He can’t tell if he is seeing clearly or if he is seeing, but not clearly. Nevertheless, unfazed about whether or not he’s seeing clearly, he puts the glasses into his breast pocket and joins the ranks of the rope-pulling men.
    He is standing in the middle of a deserted little street, a cobblestone road that crawls toward the main street. On both sides are old stone buildings and the shops downstairs either have their doors shut